Field
Aspects of the present invention generally relate to a communication apparatus and a method for controlling the communication apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
Communication apparatuses such as a smartphone and a tablet personal computer (PC) include a wireless communication function. Examples of uses of the wireless communication function include transmitting a picture and/or an electronic document stored in a communication apparatus to a printing apparatus to print the picture and/or electronic document with the printing apparatus.
In transmitting print data from a communication apparatus such as a smartphone or a tablet PC to a printing apparatus by using the wireless communication function, the user needs to select a printing apparatus on the communication apparatus. There is known a method for selecting a printing apparatus in which the communication apparatus manages a plurality of printing apparatuses in the form of a device list, and the user selects a desired printing apparatus from the device list.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2001-125761 discusses a technique for searching for printing apparatuses capable of executing printing based on given print settings, and excluding printing apparatuses unable to execute the printing based on the print settings from the search results.
A conventional communication apparatus searches for surrounding devices via a wireless local area network (LAN) function (e.g., Wi-Fi®), and manages the searched devices in the form of a device list. As a wireless communication standard, Bluetooth® low energy (BLE) is formulated in the Bluetooth® 4.0 standard. BLE enables operation with reduced power consumption and thus is attracting attention from the viewpoint of power saving.
The use of BLE for a device search can reduce power consumption of both the communication apparatus and the devices. However, BLE may not be suitable for the acquisition of some types of information needed for the device list. For example, if the information needed for the device list has been obtained by using Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), the same information may be unobtainable by BLE.